Published: June 12, 2012

MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of protesters thronged central Moscow in a drenching rain on Tuesday, voicing renewed fury at President Vladimir V. Putin
and defying recent efforts by his government to clamp down on the political opposition movement.

Dimitry Kostyukov for The New York Times

Two women watched an antigovernment protest Monday in Moscow that organizers said had attracted more than 50,000 people.

The large turnout, rivaling the big crowds that had gathered at the initial antigovernment rallies in December, suggested that the tough new posture adopted by the Kremlin against the protests was emboldening rather than deterring Mr. Putin’s critics.

On Friday, Mr. Putin signed a new law
that imposes steep financial penalties on participants in rallies that cause harm to people or property. On Sunday, officials arrested five more people on charges related to the last protest, which ended in a melee between demonstrators and riot police officers. And on Monday, the authorities searched the homes of several opposition leaders and issued summonses ordering seven of them to appear for questioning on Tuesday so they could not attend the rally.

Despite these measures, organizers said, more than 50,000 people joined in Tuesday’s protest, braving the heavy rains that soaked many participants beforehand and the claps of thunder and lightning that dispersed the crowd about four hours later. The police, who typically offer a muted estimate of crowd size, put the official tally at 15,000.

Even the physical absence of some of the opposition’s most prominent leaders seemed to strengthen rather than weaken the protesters’ resolve, and organizers said the attendance showed that people would not be intimidated.

“It means that we were not afraid of the tough actions of the powers and the police,” said Dmitry G. Gudkov, a member of Parliament and a leader of the opposition, adding that the government could achieve more through negotiation. “We need dialogue with the authorities, and we need to pursue political reforms, constitutional reforms and the reform of the judicial system. It is the only way out of this political crisis in Russia
— the only way out.”

Mr. Gudkov said it was silly for the authorities to issue summonses to prevent some opposition leaders from attending. “Everyone is a leader here, and we can change speakers,” he said. “It’s the people’s protest, and I think Putin and the government need to realize it.”

Among those forced to skip the rally and instead face questioning by the authorities was the blogger and anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny. But far from being silenced, Mr. Navalny posted a series of messages on Twitter mocking his interrogators.

“I am still in questioning,” Mr. Navalny wrote at one point. “They are asking about the Anti-Corruption Fund, who works for it, what they do — surely they want to be employed by us.”

At another point, he wrote: “They just asked, ‘How have you been employed since Jan. 1 2005?’ It seems I have been planning unrest for a long time.”

Some in the crowd also mocked the authorities. “Do you want a ticket to the paddy wagon?” cried one young man, carrying a roll of fake bus tickets. “Step up for a ticket to the paddy wagon!”

The police tightly penned in the march and rally site, a roughly mile-and-a-half stretch using barricades, trucks and other heavy equipment. But the overall police presence, while still large, seemed lighter than at previous protests. Officers, some dressed in camouflage, for the most part did not engage with the crowd. Some demonstrators tried to spin this as a public relations victory. “The police are with the people!” they shouted.

While that seemed wishful thinking, there was none of the violence that marred the last big protest, which occurred on May 6, the day before Mr. Putin’s inauguration to a third term as president.

Most complied. Mr. Navalny, the television star Kseniya Sobchak and the liberal organizer Ilya Yashin all reported to the Investigative Committee for questioning at 11 a.m., waving cheerfully to photographers on their way in.

But the leftist Sergei Udaltsov defied the summons and went to the march. Instead, his lawyer delivered a statement explaining that as an official organizer of the demonstration, Mr. Udaltsov would have been irresponsible not to attend.

Mr. Yashin, who went to the rally straight from being questioned, said he had thanked his interrogators for promoting the march. “I told them that no one had done so much for the success of our demonstration,” he said, to cheers from the crowd. “We have no better helpers than these criminal people who are carrying out senseless, idiotic repressions.”